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Back to Ho-Oh

We went on for a bit about Ho-Oh and what counters will be good for him when he has the charge move from hell; Solar Beam (SoB).

After running some sims I found some interesting results.

First off, so few mons that can resist SoB actually produce damage.

Realize the problem that we are dealing with here. This thing is basically a Lugia stat wise with an attack stat considerably stronger than Dragonite. If like me you are often in trouble with 10 raiders for Lugia think about the base need for 15 or so with good counters. That's crazy.

Here's the catch though. The only thing I found that survives SoB and does good damage is Dragonite (And of course the yet to be released Zapdos).Many of the things that resist or take no extra damage like Gyarados die at SoB. So does Golem. So using a Gyarados is doing less damage but also dying. This goes for a lot of mons. Even Tyranitar kind of pitifully pecks away with bite before MAYBE getting off an SE by the skin of his teeth but probably not in reality to be honest. Tyranitar (I know this is hard to believe) does better against SW since the damage he takes allows him to get off SE a little earlier and thus more comfortably.

I ran sims with level 38 attackers and no dodging.

Fwiw on Dragonite, he didn't just make it through SoB, he went on to drop multiple extra Outrages. And since it was set to "no dodging" this means the dodge bug not automatically take you like the others so if he dodges SoB (not very hard to do) he might continue even further than my sim.

For some reason I did not see him listed as a counter for Ho-Oh at all though.

Zapdos is the only other mon I hit that goes through SoB and outputs huge damage. Of course we all knew he would be a monster in this scenario.

I welcome any conversations or other sims run. I myself was surprised at these results.

Asked by JHVS7 years 7 months ago

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Answers

Again, it depends on your phone and why I've been hating on PvP...(I will always lose with this lag).

I actually have a recording where I actually swap 2 mons after fainting and that took 55 seconds to come back in so if people can swap stuff around in < 10 seconds, all this is moot for you. One reason why fainting and coming back in for me is much much worst in terms of damage even though I may have more powered up mons, etc...

This was also one reason my wife is doing evolve parties and hitting 90 evolves and I get around 65 evolves every single time...(she's on iPhone 7Plus). I even do the double tap now (where the evolve button is behind the mon) and still get about 65 during the double exp event recently...

Potion usage current takes me 5 seconds or so.

Just need a new phone really...feels like playing Dragon Age on my old PC on 8 FPS...

Very important:
Make sure your Dragonite doesn't have Steel Wing if you're using him for Ho-oh.

Happy I saved the lvl 29 floorboard I caught last month. Might Keep it a bit longer.

You need to tm that EQ.

How about this: bringing a Blissey just to take the SoB damage? Since the animation of SoB is long and with enough attention you can do that without too much difficulty (that is unless you are firing a Charge attack). In this case, the squad should have 5 high DPS attackers which can survive two rounds of Ho-Oh's quick attacks - first round SoB to Blissey and takes the 2nd SoB and dies.

There is certainly a scenario (I don't need to run sims for this) that an agreement between very high level groups with good communication do the die out method (two die, re-enter) then all bring Blisseys to cruise at the end....that's a real option. Lugia (better), Moltres (excellent) would also fall safely in this group with differences in survivability or DPS depending on the raiders around you.

Plz elaborate on "two die, re-enter" method. You mean two players die or?
From your findings, the options are limited to two groups only: one that can tank at least one SoB (survivors) and the other (suiciders) ? If that's the case, what is the strategy of using both groups - when and how?

Didn't you go to sleep a few hours ago? At least I will now, night!

And just to clarify - do you understand what I said by bringing Blissey? I meant switching to Blissey when the Solar Beam is about to come in. Let Blissey take the damage. Then switch back to the true attackers.
My goal is to come up with a method that doesn't need to go out and heal (given the group size is > 12)

To answer multiple questions:

You run great counters until two or more die (this is untested for Ho-Oh so 4 may be more realistic) then bring the A crew to finish out, not die, and earn damage balls. The fact is against Ho-Oh tanks won't straight live as a sixth mon unless the trainers around you running optimal counters, die and come back in. Maybe it's possible closer to twenty. But around 10 or 15 it's not going to work because Ho-Oh isn't going to die. So normal "6th mon is a tank" stiff will fail in the vast majority of raid groups.

Edit: Granted, the effectiveness of early out then reentry is very contingent on how quickly you can do it. In areas with bad service or a slow phone this could be a problem.

I see what you mean. I've used a similar strategy. The diff is I max Revive the counters and bring them to 2nd Round - for example, when raiding Articuno, I had 3 Golem and 1 Omastar. When these 4 die I go out and max Revive them, then rejoin.
Anyway I see what you meant. Thx

Does this actually work? Could be promising, but wondering how this would work out in practice.

I've tried it before when taking down a level 10 gym (pre gym rework). The pros are limited while the cons are obvious: when switching, you waste energy for both the attacker and the tanker, and also cost you some DPS. Another scenario where people do this is when you want to save potions - then you let a cp10 Pidgey take the damage ;)
Back then it was not needed since you can simply just dodge. But now when survivability is a priority it may come to handy.

Especially due to the dodging bug indeed

What would be even more awesome is if you can bring in a Wobbufett and send that Solar Beam back at Ho-Oh!

I really like this idea

You would have to re-charge the charge move if switching everytime a solarbeam is coming. That is gonna cost you alot.

All the reasons to have Rock Blast Golems!
Going with this strategy, some attackers are off the table - Tyranitar and Vape, with low EPS quick attack and one-bar charge attack. Golem with Rock Throw, nevertheless, is always a good attacker into Ho-Oh. If you do the math you'll find that most damage from you Golem is from Rock Throw but not SE.

Vape has Aqua tail; 3 bars
Vape has a EPS on 10 vs golems 7,78

And vape has more HP meaning it could afford to trade some HP for charge-energy.

If your tactic is to switch in blissey at every solar beam you will need a quick move with a highly EPS in order to quickly load and attack with a charge move.

Rock throw has the 6th lowest(!) EPS (of 57). Water gun is in the middle.

Don't get me wrong it's a good attacker but if blissey is going to take the hit you need a high EPS quick move.

Vape isn't doing enough damage, I'm afraid.
Rock Throw is not about its EPS. It's about its tremendous DPS with X1.96 into Ho-Oh. You don't need to fire Charge attack if you can Fire many Rock Throws!
Don't think that Blissey can tank SoB forever. I just found out a sad truth that Blissey can't survive the 4th SoB from Level 40 Ho-Oh. So you need to switch AND dodge at least once. Anyway, since Blissey can only take so much, the attackers must have super high DPS to make Blissey's sacrifice worthy.

I'm not sure golem is doing enough damage if you are low on Charge energy. How did you count on the numbers? I mean most likely will vapreon get one or two more charge moves but you have crunched the numbers and this does not matter?
You just wrote "tyranitar and vape with low EPS" and your talking about using rock blast but now you are saying your main tactic is rock throws? I do not follow.
Yes in the kamikaze scenario golem is better but in the blissey-punching bag scenario I still can't see golem being that great. Vapreon should outperform it I'm guessing.

Some numbers of the scenario would be great though.

For Tyranitar and Vaporeon, their quick move is "bad" when attacking into Ho-Oh (Vape to a lesser extent), that is compared to Golem's Rock Throw: 1) DPS wise, Bite deals neutral and Water Gun deals x1.4. 2) EPS wise, Tyranitar has the possibility that he can't fire his Stone Edge before Ho Oh fires SoB - at that time you need to switch in Blissey to tank. This is the conclusion from
JHVS and he got the numbers.

The point is, for each attacker, with Blissey taking one SoB for them, they have only two rounds to attack, each round until Ho-Oh uses SoB. It's not much time, so you need to maximize your DPS by either using a high DPS quick attack like Rock Throw or firing many Charge Attacks. In this sense, Hydro Pump Vape and SE Tyranitar doesn't fit the purpose, that's all I meant. Your suggestion, Aqua Tail Vape, might work, which I didn't think of.

I do believe you can change the strategy on Ho-oH. Use four or two of the most powerful but glassy counter. Then quit and come back with more tanky and less powerful six.
For example, maybe two Golems and two trex. Then revive and come back with two golems, two trex and two dragonite.

That is precisely and exactly what many of us will need to do against this moveset. No question.

Or throw in a little mix. Either way, I would try to have your DPS dealers in your second group so that you have a higher chance on getting the damage bonus.

Let me go ahead and say that we are special here on GP. We have seriously discussed a mon that doesn't yet exist with movesets we aren't sure will exist in all scenarios and all sorts of methods to combat them....with mons we don't yet have. Lmaooo

I'm not sure if we are crazy or not.

We are geeks :)

And you really should go get some sleep

And I really should get to work instead of endless refreshing this page...

Lol. Truth

This is our end game...there is no other and is more fun "analyzing" strategy than walking and playing actually...

Reading all this, I think a lot of people here would actually WANT to test/do more Solar Beam Ho-Ohs when the majority will just skip that particular one...

Yes. It will be so far the best chance to demonstrate our knowledge and skills of the game, seeing the frustrating faces of other casuals "why do my Pokémon die so fast" while we output great damage to Ho-Oh.

I don't mind having discussions like this. I actually wish the game would be more difficult and challanging sometimes.

There are not any challanges left in Pokemon Go. Ho-oh could be a potential one, which I will enjoy. In before Niantic lowering the CP of Ho-oh to please the vast majority of players.